


stuck inside these four walls

by clarinetta



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Post-breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarinetta/pseuds/clarinetta
Summary: During the Lost Weekend, Paul visits John in LA, and their friends decide to lock them in a room and keep them there until they can work out their multitude of issues.





	

_**Thump thump thump** _

_What the…..Is that the door?_

_**Pound pound pound POUND POUND** _

_Oh god please don’t wake me up yet._

_**POUND POUND POUND POU-** _

“Jesus H bleeding Christ,” Paul says, sitting up before he is fully awake, the sun burning a razor-sharp line right through his closed eyelids. He can’t immediately remember anything about the preceding night; judging by the headache he has, he figures this is probably a good thing. He shades one hand over his eyes and cracks one eyelid open, just the slightest bit, to assess his surroundings.

“Finally, you’re awake,” says a voice somewhere near his feet and off to the right; it’s a familiar voice, thin with irritation and maybe a couple shades of rabbity panic. Paul forces his head to the right-no, no, too fast. He fights down a wave of nausea and slows his movement. Inch by inch he shifts, squinting in the horrible sun, until he can see the source of the voice: a tall, blurry figure standing in front of the door with his hands on his hips, feet planted aggressively apart, like he might be preparing to lower his head and charge.

John Winston (Ono) Lennon.

“What in the bloody fuck?” Paul asks by way of good morning.

John does not deign to answer but instead goes back to pounding on the closed door. Paul winces and tries to block out the sound, gathers what little wits he has left and looks around the room. It looks fairly nondescript, with high ceilings, only one piece of art hanging on the wall to his right. Paul squints, but can’t place it. There’s a wardrobe at the opposite end of the bed; another door next to the wardrobe which Paul guesses might be a bathroom; and a large window with the blinds pulled up spanning most of the wall to his left. He is lying on one of two twin sized beds in the room, the only furnishings aside from a spindly looking bedside table in between them.

He remembers now where he is-Harry Nilsson’s house in Los Angeles, visiting John-but that does not explain why Paul does not recognize this room, or where his wife is, or why John won’t stop banging on the _bloody door-_

“John,” Paul says, loud enough to make himself wince. John ignores him. “John!” he says, more forcefully. “Have you forgotten how to use the doorknob?”

Instead of answering verbally, like a normal human being, John throws something at Paul and continues his pounding, this time with an open palm, like he’s slapping the door for being naughty. The something, which turns out to be a balled up piece of paper, lands on the bed near Paul’s hip. Paul picks it up and pulls it open, smooths it out with his fingers as best he can. The note is only a few words, thick slashes across the page in unfamiliar capital letters:

_**WORK OUT** _  
_**YOUR SHIT** _

He props himself up on his elbows, beginning to understand that thread of anxiety he had noticed in John’s voice. “What the hell is this?”

Finally, John turns to look at him. Shadowed eyes reddened by hangover, glasses missing, mouth pressed in a tight angry line, he says through gritted teeth, “They’ve locked us in, you stupid shit.”

-

After about ten more minutes of pounding on the door, John finally gives up, shaking out his sore hands, red with the force he’d inflicted.

Paul doesn’t notice. He is sitting against the headboard, knees pulled up, arms clasped around them, his head buried in the crook of one elbow to block out the light. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries to think past the screaming hangover, tries to consider a way out of this room that doesn’t involve loud noises.

After a long moment, Paul raises his head and asks, “Who locked us in?”

“I don’t ruddy well know, do I?” John says from where he is sitting down by the foot of Paul’s bed. The panic has been replaced with sullen childlike resentment. “Fell asleep on the sofa with May in me lap and the next thing I know, I wake up to your bloody snoring, I’m in a guest bed, and the door’s fuckin’ _locked!”_ He punctuates the last word with a savage kick that thuds against the heavy wood. _“Fuck!”_ he yells, kicking out again, and then flops onto his back, out of Paul’s sight line. But after a restless minute he stands, still shaking his hands out a little.

“Where are you going, then?” Paul asks.

John looks down his nose at Paul, and Paul flashes back to the day they met, John only a centimeter or two taller but still looking down his long straight nose at little Paul in his white sport coat. Paul had bristled, immediately on the defensive, unaware of John’s comically bad eyesight. The memory hurts in a hazy, far-off way.

“Gotta take a piss,” he says, mock-sweet. “Wanna watch, Paulie?” He disappears into the room next to the wardrobe before Paul can come up with a response. Sighing, Paul tucks his head into his arms again, inexplicably frustrated with himself for not being able to match John this time.

His own frustration confuses him, since this is part of the reason he had come to LA in the first place. He’d wanted to see if JohnandPaul was still intact somehow, if the threads that tied them together had been severed completely or not. Matching John wit-for-wit used to come second nature to him. Now he feels slow, the tortoise on the racetrack to John’s hare, bounding ahead of him, John’s whole life a blazing glory while he, simple Former-Beatle Paul, plods along, an old, washed-up family man.

_No._

Paul shakes his head. He knows better than that, now. Once, not so long ago, he would have recognized John’s derisive tone in his head and listened to it, believed it when it told him he was nothing, would never be anything again. Once, listening to that voice had almost killed him.

He knows better now.

John steps out of the bathroom. Paul watches him discreetly through a small open space between his arms. John’s exhaustion and frustration are displayed plainly on his face, along with something closer to sadness than Paul would have expected. Just another reminder of how much John has changed in such a short time; another reminder that Paul was not there to see it happen. Guilt stabs him in the heart as a memory from the previous night swims to the surface: John coked up and well past drunk, his face a red mess and his hands trembling, barely able to keep hold of the cigarette he was smoking. Paul had been stricken, a little frightened; he’d heard that John’s drinking and drugging had gotten out of hand, but he barely recognized the wreck of a person that had greeted him at the door.

John walks over to the window and peers out. “What floor are we on?” Paul asks, and John shakes his head.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he answers. “It’s too far to jump.” He sounds glum, resigned to his fate to spend the day with an old friend he barely knows anymore. 

_And whose fault is that?_ Paul thinks viciously, accusatory, his fury set to the tune of How Do You Sleep and Yoko’s smug, superior tone. But he reminds himself that Yoko isn’t here, and that blame won’t fix the mess they’ve all made together. He turns his head fully and watches John with hazy eyes. Shoulders hunched, John leans on the windowsill, fingers tapping restlessly; suddenly he launches himself up onto the narrow sill and perches there like a rare bird. His frame mercifully blocks out most of the sun and Paul leans back into the shadow he creates, closing his eyes, _just for a minute,_ he promises himself.

Some time later, a surprised yelp and painful-sounding thump jerk him out of his doze. He spots John in a heap on the floor under the window, looking bewildered and disgruntled; Paul realizes that John must have dozed off as well and fallen from his perch, and he covers his mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Paul intones, giggles bubbling up in his throat. His headache has faded for the most part, for which he is eternally grateful. John struggles to his feet, brushing himself off, his face a thundercloud. “What now?” Paul asks, just for something to say.

 

\---

 

_Oh ‘what now,’ he says, ‘what now’ as though I have all the answers, ‘what now’ as if I have an itinerary hidden in me pocket somewhere, ‘what now’ because I’m the host and the oldest and the one with the whip-crack wit, right, John, why don’t you know what comes next?_

“Right now… I’d like a smoke,” John says out loud. Paul pats his pockets, looking for his ciggies and _god he has the most beautiful fingers,_ and Paul looks down and his eyelashes fan over his cheeks and John has to avert his eyes to keep from rushing over and kissing him and begging forgiveness for every bad thing he ever said. This is why he’d stayed away, why he’d drowned himself in Yoko and heroin and America because with a blink and a smile and a ciggie Paul could bring John to his knees, without even trying could hook John again and again-every move Paul makes is just another reminder that John is weak, needy and childish and weak.

An eternity later, Paul locates his cigarettes, pulls one out for himself, and tosses John the pack, along with a small book of matches. The hissing strike, the flame, the tiny heat burning at his fingertips: every movement provides automatic comfort, one of John’s favourite little routines. The first inhale is heavenly, as always, and John feels his eyes flutter closed in relief and pleasure. He opens his eyes and Paul has the same look on his face, a contented smile with smoke curling from his rosebud lips. John saunters over to the window and throws it open to let the smoke out; to his chagrin, Paul joins him at the window, standing much too close and, as always, not close enough. John wants to wrap his arms around Paul and never let go; he wants to shove Paul away so he never has to look at him again.

Someone is playing music downstairs despite the early hour, and Paul, oblivious to the tug of war going on in John’s mind, begins to hum along to the song that is playing. A moment slides by before John recognizes the song, albeit a different version from the one the Beatles used to sing in the early days, and throws up his hands in disgust, turning away from the window.

“What?” Paul asks sharply, and oh, isn’t that just rich. The icing on the cake, always, Paul pretending to be oblivious and innocent, all the while that secret smirk hides in the corner of his mouth.

“‘Till There Was You’?” John mutters. _“Really.”_

Paul rounds on him. “What’s your problem, man?” he demands.

“You’re scared,” John says simply. Paul narrows his eyes. “Everyone knows it. You’re afraid to do anything out of the box, so you fall right back into your granny shite. Pathetic, really. Cowardly.”

“And what’s that got to do with you?”

John goes hot and cold and hot again with rage and shock, his jaw working soundlessly like the mouth of a dying fish. Paul turns his back to John _(don’t you dare, you coward, you bastard, **look at me** )_ and takes a casual drag of his cigarette.

At last, John collects the broken shards of himself long enough to rasp, “It’s got everything to do with me, you cunt.”

Paul looks over his shoulder, not quite at John but somewhere over John’s right ear, with calm, cold eyes, those eyes that could hide a thunderstorm. “The Beatles are over, John,” he says. Frost crawls over the hard smooth edges of his voice. “Whatever shit music I make is mine. Not ours. It doesn’t reflect on you anymore, so why can’t you just leave my shit alone?”

“Because I know you can do better!” John bursts out. That, at least, shuts Paul up for a minute; his eyes go wide, mouth frozen half-open. Waving his cigarette for emphasis, John keeps pushing, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. “I’ve _seen_ you do better! _Band on the Run_ was so good, but I know you. You’re going to just _let it be_ and go back to the easy stuff.”

Paul recovers and snaps, “You can’t just give a compliment, can you? Always have to send it with a backhand.” But John relaxes a bit when Paul turns his face away, revealing a blush spreading across his cheek.

“Just me tempestuous nature, baby,” John coos. He steps back to the window and leans against it, the sun warming his back, so that he can watch Paul without turning his head. 

“For what it’s worth,” Paul says, “I really liked _Imagine._ Most of it, anyroad.”

John shrugs his shoulders, dismissing the potential awkwardness before it can settle in. “Alan and Jim were good, but they’re no Ringo.” Feeling generous, he drags in another lungful of smoke and takes the plunge. “And Klaus is no you on bass.”

The silence weighs heavy, and John sneaks a glance at Paul’s face. His eyes are wide, cheeks still aflame, and he bites his lip in that specific way he does when he wants to keep a smile hidden.

They take drags of their ciggies at the same time, and without discussing it, both blow perfect smoke rings. Paul’s dissipates before John’s, wisping into nothingness just above his head, but John’s ring floats almost all the way to the high ceiling before breaking gently open and fading away. Paul nods his approval, and a beautiful warmth spreads through John’s chest that has nothing to do with the nicotine. He thinks that he would probably do anything for Paul’s little nods, up to and including begging on his hands and knees.

He watches the rising curls of smoke as they drift up. The silence lies comfortably between them. The music from downstairs fades out for a moment and John listens to the traffic zooming by instead, the occasional toot of a horn, the skid of tires. Itching for another glance of approval from Paul, John wiggles his hips, Elvis-style, and dances away from the window. Paul smiles, chin in hand, but it’s a distant, detached thing, his mind clearly far away, and John wilts. He stabs the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the nightstand, suddenly angry with himself and Paul for reasons he can’t quite comprehend.

“I’m sorry about Klein,” Paul says out of the blue, and John is sent reeling, caught completely off his guard. He whirls to glare at Paul and is struck dumb by the look on Paul’s face: not plastic-fake sympathy with that smug grin hiding underneath, as John expected, but merely a disconnected gaze aimed at nothing in particular, that maddening sense that Paul’s mind has moved on to something infinitely more interesting than John.. It leaves John shivering, cold and abandoned.

“What’s that supposed to mean, then?” John challenges; his voice wants to waver and falter but he savagely tamps it down. Paul turns and frowns. The sun outlines his profile, his perfect nose and lips and brow, in translucent pink. He does not meet John’s glare, which is _utterly infuriating,_ just frowns at empty air.

“It means _I’m sorry about Klein,”_ Paul repeats, as though John is a child and can’t understand plain English. John’s blood boils in his veins. “I’m sorry he wasn’t what you thought he’d be.”

“You’re so fucking smug,” John hisses, red miasma swimming in front of his eyes. Paul still refuses to look at him and isn’t _that_ just the perfect metaphor for what their relationship has become. “God, you haven’t changed a bit. Everyone on the McCartney bandwagon and it’s still not enough to be right and have everyone in your camp, is it? You’ve got to shove me nose in it as well!”

“Everyone but the three most important people,” Paul says. Then as if to cover up this vulnerability, he tacks on, quick: “I’m not, either. I’m not shoving your nose in it.” John has never wanted so badly for Paul to raise his eyes, turn his head just a few centimeters more. _You’re such a fucking coward, Paul._ “I just meant,” he continues, “that I regret how things shook out. Honest. I didn’t mean-”

“Will you _bloody well look at me!”_

 

\---

 

John’s voice rings in Paul’s ear, shockingly loud and close all of a sudden, and Paul whips around to find John standing inches away. His eyes are ablaze with rage and desperation and pain; Paul locks onto his stare, finally, determined to match John’s intensity. He straightens to his full height, just a centimeter taller than John since 1960. John does the same. They are almost nose to nose-Paul could count John’s eyelashes, if he wanted. John breathes as though he has just run up a flight of stairs, hard bursts through his long nose.

Paul loosens his muscles, letting himself relax into the eye contact; and then something heavy dislodges in his chest, some terrible stone that had been weighing him down. Feeling feather-light, he takes his first deep breath in what feels like years. _This is it,_ he thinks incoherently. This is the thing he never knew had gone missing: the terrifying, thrilling sense of being known and truly seen by John Lennon. John is not looking at him but _into_ him, _through_ him, all of Paul’s carefully constructed barriers falling away under his gaze like fog in the glare of the morning sun. And even though he never stopped watching John, to Paul it feels like he is really seeing the man, for the first time in a long time.

“There you are,” John says on a contented sigh.

“I never left,” Paul murmurs.

John’s eyes shutter. Paul’s heart swoops in terror, but John doesn’t snap this time, just smiles a little sadly and pokes the end of Paul’s nose with his finger. And just like that, the moment is over. Blinking rapidly, Paul returns to the world, a little dazed and flustered. He lights another cigarette and ignores the slight tremor in his hands.

“I wonder where Harry keeps the whiskey in here,” John muses.

“Why would there be whiskey in a guest room?” Paul asks, still turned away.

“He has a bottle in every room in this house, straight up,” John says. “Including the attic.”

“There’s an attic?” Paul says, only vaguely interested, but the search for alcohol distracts John from answering. For lack of anything else to do, Paul helps. The floorboards underneath the beds lay bare and covered with dust bunnies; he uncovers nothing in the little nightstand drawer but a couple of pens and a small pad of paper.

“AHA!”

When Paul looks over, John points excitedly at the now opened cupboard, where, on the very top shelf, high out of both of their reaches, sits a full bottle of Scotch whiskey, tipped over on its side but still intact. Paul whistles.

“That looks expensive,” he says approvingly. John hums in agreement, but as he approaches the closet, the problem becomes more clear: despite being nearly six feet tall, the bottle remains out of his reach.

“Give us a boost,” John orders. Paul raises his eyebrows at being bossed around but walks over to the closet anyway, presenting his back for John to jump on. “Ta.” John places his hands carefully on Paul’s shoulders, but hesitates. Paul is forcefully reminded of all the times they have done this, the occasions when they climbed on each other and bowled each other over with no hesitation or worry, with absolute trust.

A couple of seconds pass in silence, and Paul turns his head. “I’m not gettin’ any younger, old man,” he barks and finally John growls, pushes down on his shoulders and jumps onto Paul’s back, wrapping his legs securely around Paul’s waist. Paul groans with his weight but stands up easily and hobbles as close to the shelf as he can get. John releases his death grip on Paul’s shoulders; stretching upward, burying one hand in Paul’s hair to steady himself, he grabs the neck of the bottle with the tips of his fingers and slides it over the edge of the shelf.

He whoops and hugs Paul’s head, which is a strange but not unpleasant sensation, and finally kisses the crown of his hair roughly and hops down. Slightly bereft at the loss, Paul pretends to care about his mussed hair, frowning poutily at John and fixing it with quick fast fingers. John snorts and, reaching out lightning fast, rubs his hand again through Paul’s mane. He dances away gleefully from Paul’s ineffectual swipe.

“Well, go on then,” Paul insists.

John opens the bottle obligingly and takes the first swig straight from the mouth. He hums in appreciation. “Harry’s got taste,” he says, and hands the bottle off to Paul. Paul takes a swig identical to John’s, that old need to compete and match and _win_ bubbling to the surface. They lock gazes once again, this time over the bottle. John grabs it back, but Paul refuses to let go, allowing himself to be pulled forward with it. They are eyeball to eyeball again, millimeters and not much more between them. Their hands overlap. It is an electric feeling. Paul loves this, has always loved this: being challenged, challenging. Clawing their way to becoming equals, fighting their way to the top together, always with the push and pull, the tug of war. Something ignites in Paul’s heart, something he thought had died with the sixties.

This time it is Paul who steps away first. He untangles his fingers from the bottle and settles on the nearest bed, his legs stretched out and crossed daintily at the ankles. John follows, plopping down at the other end of the same bed. They pass the Scotch back and forth a few times in silence. The alcohol slides through Paul’s system like liquid sunshine; he tips his head back and rests it on the headboard, lets his eyes fall closed in quiet pleasure.

“How’s Linda?”

Paul snorts at the stilted cordiality in John’s voice. “Yeah, she’s all right, man.”

“And the McCartlets?”

“Doing well. Stella’s learning to read already.”

“Smart girl.”

“Oh, aye. Well she’s got my genes, hasn’t she?”

“Regrettably,” John intones. Paul kicks him. The drink is settling in, creating that delicious heaviness in his head and limbs. He motions for the bottle again and John passes it obligingly. It burns going down and Paul lets out a hissing breath that seems to last forever.

“Give over, lightweight,” John says, motioning for the bottle again, but there is real affection in his voice. Paul looks at him and John is gazing at him with that soft, trusting, starry-eyed look. A look that Paul hadn’t been on the receiving end of since before Yoko.

Of course, he has to go and ruin it with his big mouth.

 

\---

 

“What happened to us, Johnny?”

The question slams into John like a physical blow, a punch to the stomach; he turns his quick exhale into a humorless laugh because it beats bursting into tears, and says, “Baby, you’ll want to get me a lot drunker before you can have your way with me.”

“Come on,” Paul wheedles. “This is what we’re here for, yeah? They won’t let us go ‘til we’ve worked things out? Let’s get it over with.” He whistles a couple of bars of “We Can Work It Out,” the middle eight, where John would always come in with the lower harmony, their voices twisting and swooping together, creating magic. _Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting._

Any hint of a smile disappears from John’s face and he takes a long, long drink of Scotch, avoiding Paul’s droopy, sorrow-filled gaze for as long as possible. Paul motions for him to hand the bottle over, and John does, grateful for the delay. Their fingers brush together again. John shivers inwardly at the electricity that crackles through them, that they have always created between themselves. He plays with his sideboards, twisting the rough hair above his jaw with idle hands, until Paul has finished his turn with the Scotch. John tracks the strong graceful arc of Paul’s wrists as they move and notices a thick silver chain peeking out from under his left sleeve.

“I remember when I gave you that,” John says softly, gesturing toward the ID bracelet, and he does remember, with the bright, almost painful clarity that often accompanies his memories of Paul. It had been an absolutely gorgeous afternoon in 1963, Paul’s last day of age twenty. John had presented the small box with a nervousness that bordered on panic- _what if he doesn’t like it what if he thinks I’m a nancy what if he laughs at me what if_ -and Paul had stared in utter amazement at the box, almost forgetting to open it in his shock. The moment stretched until John was ready to scream, but when Paul finally opened the box, his beautiful face broke into a smile big enough to blot out the afternoon sun. “It’s, uh, from all three of us,” John had lied, and surely Paul could see through him, but he let it pass and slipped the bracelet onto his left wrist, flipping the tag so it showed his name, engraved in four capital letters: PAUL. “It’s nothing, really,” John had said, just to break the silence. Paul had looked at him and John had utterly melted. _Never ever leave me, Paul._ Paul had called him a soft git and tackled him in a fierce hug, and John had never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in his life.

“Aye, as do I,” Paul says, back in the present day. Never one to let go of a subject once he got his teeth into it, though, he drops the nostalgic smile and looks steadily into John’s eyes. “Come ‘ead, John,” he says, already a bit of exasperation creeping into his voice.

John steels himself, locks his jaw. “Same old story,” he says dully. “Money shite. Apple shite. You know this song and dance, Paulie.”

“No,” Paul counters immediately, as though he expected John to dodge the question again in exactly this way. “Not the band, John. Not the Beatles. _Us.”_

John feels trapped, cornered like an animal. So he bares his teeth and lashes out. “There was no ‘us’, Paul.”

His words produce the desired effect, clearly finding their mark. “Bollocks,” Paul hisses. The color begins to rise in his cheeks. “We were fine, and then India-” He stops abruptly, and John sits rigid on a knife’s edge, waiting for him to say it, to speak it aloud and make it real. But Paul swerves around it. “And then Yoko is there and all over our amps-”

“Don’t bring her into this-” John warns.

“You did it first!” Paul exclaims. “And she’s messing about on our amps and suggesting all these daft things and you won’t even look at me!” He takes a deep steadying breath. “I know…” he starts, then pauses again to take another drink of Scotch. “I know,” he continues, quieter, “that I acted a cunt that summer. But I was only trying to do what I thought was best for the group.”

 _“My_ group,” John corrects acidly, and Paul loses it.

“The fuck it was!” he shouts, making John look up. “You gave up on your band! You didn’t give a shit about any of it, any of us! If I had let you run things, we wouldn’t even have got the White Album out!” Anger twists his pretty mouth into ugly shapes and _God_ how John hates him.

“You and your ego,” John sneers. “Unbelievable, you are. Tell me, Paulie, how did you find the time to manage the Beatles when you were clearly so busy tossing off to your own genius?”

“This coming from the cunt who thought the whole world would just love to see his naked dick on an album cover.” John narrows his eyes. “What, John?” he says, grinning maliciously. “You can dish it out but you can’t take it, is that it? You are so full of shit it’s a wonder your spit isn’t brown.”

“You never understood us,” John seethes. “You never even tried.”

He waits for Paul’s answering bite, almost gleeful; Paul clearly has a retort ready. But at the last minute he snaps his mouth closed, shuts his eyes instead and takes a very deep breath, letting it out slowly. One minute he is livid; the next, the very picture of calm and collected. His blandest meet-the-press face. _Probably reciting the mantra that bloody Maharishi gave him,_ John thinks, contempt and pain and rejection seeping through his very pores at the mere thought of India.

“You have not answered my question,” Paul says, in that low, overly clear voice he only uses when he is drunk and angry and trying to stay calm. John bristles at that tone being used on him. It makes him feel low to the ground, like a child.

“Rubbish to your question!” John bellows. He realizes, quite suddenly, that his face is hovering only inches from Paul’s, the bed still bouncing on its springs from his sudden furious leap from one end of the bed to the other. His arms brace his weight, planted on either side of Paul’s hips, taut and ready for a fight. He swallows the dizziness that the movement causes and glares right into Paul’s widened eyes. “You know what happened.”

“Oh, do I?” Paul challenges. He straightens his spine and lifts his chin and glares right back at John, a flushed, defiant gaze that twists John’s gut terribly.

“Aye,” he spits. Every syllable rips a fresh chunk of flesh from his already bruised and broken heart. “You left me.”

 

\---

 

Paul’s mind empties. He possesses no words to express the shock he has just been given. With a sliver of embarrassment, he realizes that his mouth is hanging open, loose-lipped, his tongue slack and useless. John’s heavy, boozy breath and resentful eyes consume his entire consciousness.

“You what?” he finally manages.

“No, _you_ what,” John snaps. “You left me, you sodding prick.”

“What are you talking about?” John leans back on his heels, the resentment and fury in his expression now mixed with uncertainty, and Paul follows, in a sudden panic. He has to know what John thinks, he-he has to fix-he would _never-_

“John.” He grabs John’s shoulders, terror rising in his heart. “John, what do you mean, I left you?”

“You-you were out all the time,” John begins to babble. “With your new friends, all your arty underground friends. And you-when you got engaged to Jane, and then-”

“India,” Paul breathes.

_India, where they truly made love for the first time, no drunken dark hotel rooms or fumbling hands. No drugs between them, no way to explain it away the next day or pretend they couldn’t remember it happening. Just the two of them, achingly sober, asking with their eyes, consenting silently. John’s fingers twisting in Paul’s hair, gentle at first, rougher as he came closer to the edge. The muggy warmth of the India night and the friction between them creating tiny droplets of sweat that pooled where their skin touched. They couldn’t stop watching each other, that night, faces shadowed and hungry. With each kiss and thrust and bit-off moan, Paul’s heart thrummed an insistent rhythm: I-love-you, I-love-you, I-love-you, I-love-you. He thought he felt that same rhythm in John’s veins as they flew over the edge together._

_The memory of the aftermath weighs heavy. Lying boneless and breathless in each other’s arms, listening as the strangely musical sounds of the jungle slowly filtered back into Paul’s consciousness. He had nearly fallen asleep when John sat up, roughly extricating himself from their entanglement. John asked if he was still going home the next day, with Jane, and Paul answered sleepily in the affirmative, yes, he had to. He watched with bleary eyes as John dressed in the dark, wondering about the strained, choked tone of his voice but not coherent enough to ask. Before John left, he said, voice brittle as broken glass: “Have a nice trip with your fiancee.”_

“God, John,” Paul says exasperatedly. “That wasn’t me leaving you. That was me leaving _India!”_

“You were going to get married,” John exclaims. “Not to Jane, but someone, anyone who was willing and able to give you babies!”

“And what about all the times _you_ left _me,_ then?” John blinks, and Paul presses forward, on the offensive this time, the balance shifted. “When you brought Yoko into the studio. When you flaunted her in front of our faces. Every time you left during rehearsal to shoot up with her. Every time you couldn’t be arsed to give a shit about George’s songs, or mine, OR your own! What about when you asked me for a _bloody divorce!”_

“I did that because I wanted you to come crawling back!” John stumbles to plant his feet steadily on the floor and stands up, his back to Paul and the bed. His shoulders slump suddenly. “Fuck. It was stupid. I don’t know what I wanted.”

“I couldn’t come back, John,” Paul says, a little softer. “Christ, you knew that! Two kids and a wife, and you with your own...”

“Oh, aye,” John agrees bitterly, still facing away. “A wife and a brood and a farm, away from me. Just what you always wanted.”

“Fuck you,” Paul says, suddenly tired of this.

“Fuck _you,”_ John shouts, whirling on Paul with sudden ferocity. “You chose Linda! What has she got that I haven’t?”

Smirking, Paul says, “Well, I would say ‘tits’, but you’ve put on a bit of weight since I last saw y-” The rest of his insult dies in his throat when John tackles him, knocking him clear off the bed. They hit the floor at the same time and grapple for a moment, but it’s no contest; John is on the offensive and has the element of surprise, and he pins Paul’s arms above his head in short order.

“Fuck you, James Paul McCartney,” John rages.

“All right,” Paul says darkly. Everything he has wanted to say to John for the past four years simmers under his skin, and for the first time, he decides to let them boil over. “You want to know, do you? She encourages me. She doesn’t talk shit about me in the press or write nasty songs about me or snap at me. She doesn’t leave me when something better comes along. She took care of me when I was too depressed to get out of bed. She supports my music instead of treating it like muzak. And she loves me.” Paul’s throat tightens; he swallows against tears that want to spring to his eyes. “She _loves_ me, you stupid bastard.”

John releases Paul’s wrists as though Paul’s skin is burning his palms, and Paul braces for a punch. But for once, John’s fists keep still. Paul risks looking full into John’s face and gets another surprise: rather than pain or anger, there is a look of dawning wonder in his eyes. In a flash, John grabs Paul’s hand and they stumble to their feet together. Paul’s head spins dangerously for a moment.

“Whoa,” John mumbles, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“Good whiskey,” Paul agrees, sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed. And then, a third shock in under a minute: John sits down next to him, presses against him from shoulder to toe, his shoulders hunched a little in that sheepish pose he assumed whenever he felt guilty and wanted to apologize without actually saying anything. True to form, instead of speaking, he reaches behind them and grabs the whiskey, now under the half empty mark, and offers Paul a drink first-a tiny gesture of peace. Paul accepts the gesture and returns it by lighting them both a cigarette.

They smoke and drink in silence. John’s body radiates warmth; with every minute shift that Paul makes, John follows, catlike, almost nuzzling against him. The whiskey settles heavy in Paul’s sludgy veins now, his thoughts slow and dizzy. When he finishes his smoke, he decides to lie down, and John reclines too. Their bodies are still aligned perfectly from top to tail.

“Paul?”

John’s voice hovers around a whisper; Paul fancies he can see the wavering word floating up and dissipating against the high ceiling.

“Yeah,” Paul sighs.

“You said… You said you liked _Imagine.”_

“Aye, I did.” 

John turns onto his side to face Paul. He grabs Paul’s upper arm, as if needing a tether, and finally spills his confession. “I wrote 'Jealous Guy’ for you.”

The words process slowly. Paul looks into John’s eyes and finds only naked honesty and maybe a touch of regret. “And another one too,” John adds. “‘I Know I Know.’”

 _Today, I love you more than yesterday… And I know, and I’m sorry…_ The lyrics echo in Paul’s mind as though reaching for him across a vast plain. He had never imagined those lovely words might be for him. He had wondered, briefly, and hoped in the secret hours, but never expected it to be true, or to hear it come straight from John’s mouth.

“Really?” Paul says softly.

John, eyes bloodshot and glassy, gazes at Paul with such affection that Paul’s eyes begin to sting, his throat locking up. John touches guitar-rough fingertips to Paul’s cheek and traces his jawline. “Is it really so hard to believe that I love you?” John asks. His voice breaks around the last word.

“Shit,” Paul chokes, and the tears begin to fall. He tries to cover his face but John makes a negative sound in the back of his throat and pulls Paul’s hands down, locking their fingers together. He is crying now, too, tears sliding sideways over his long nose.

“I do,” John insists, “I love you. I love you, Paulie. God, please say something.”

Instead of attempting to speak, Paul pulls John into a hug, buries his nose in John’s shoulder, and cries, drunk and messy, trying to muffle the sound. Immediately John’s arms wrap themselves around Paul too, a bit awkward at first but settling quickly. His sharp nose digs into the muscles in Paul’s neck. Paul doesn’t mind one bit. They weep in each other’s arms, tears and snot soaking the collars of their shirts, until sleep drags them under in the early LA evening.

 

\---

 

When John wakes some hours later, still cradled in Paul’s arms, the sky has gone dark, the only light filtering through the window artificial and yellow. The lights and shadows play over Paul’s sleeping face, catching the planes and hollows and wrinkles of his skin in sharp relief. John allows himself a contented smile.

A shadow catches in the periphery of his myopic vision, and he raises his head and squints. It takes a moment for the thing to take shape; something unclenches in his chest when he realizes what he is seeing. It is the bedroom door, unlocked while they were sleeping and standing wide open, the freedom of the hallway and the house and Los Angeles beyond the threshold.

John looks out into the softly lit corridor. His gaze slides back to Paul, still blissfully asleep and unaware of their recent liberation. He debates waking Paul, but then he sighs and rests his head in the crook of Paul’s arm again.

He lets Paul’s steady breathing lull him back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Mclennon fanfic exchange! Huge thanks to @stonedlennon for beta-ing, @singlepigeon and @ravengoodwoman for being willing and enthusiastic soundboards, and everyone in the Paul Pals chat who cheered me on.


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